Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted on Sunday that his plan for cutting Britain's huge public deficit was reasonable and that opposition plans for deeper cuts would condemn Britain to a longer recession.
A day after the opposition Conservatives launched their campaign for a parliamentary election Brown must call by June, Brown pledged to fight to hang on to power in the face of opinion polls that consistently indicate his Labour Party is doomed to defeat.
"When you're behind in the polls, you've got to regard yourselves as the fighter, and I've always fought. Everything I've ever won in my life I've had to fight for," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr.
Hitting back at Conservative attacks on what they call his "irresponsible" economic policies, Brown insisted it was the Conservatives who had made the wrong decisions and that only Labour could guarantee growth in the British economy.
Brown's response when asked about the timing of the next government budget appeared to lessen the chance he could opt for a March election, instead of the more widely expected May.
Asked if he was confident there would be a Labour budget this spring, Brown said: "Of course there'll be a Labour budget, if it's at the right time, yes.
"I believe there'll be a budget this spring. It's the right thing to do," he said.